Infiltrator kills three at Jewish settlement

JERUSALEM -- A gunman sneaked onto the grounds of an Orthodox Jewish high school in the West Bank late Tuesday and killed three teen-agers, even as Israeli troops continued their daily raids into Palestinian towns.

The man shot and killed three Israeli students outside a high school in the settlement of Itamar, near the Palestinian city of Nablus, settlers and rescue service officials said. The attacker was shot and killed by the settlement's security chief.

Hezi Katoa, a rescue service worker, told Israel Radio that they found one student hit by a number of bullets in the chest, and then two more "lying behind the building with bullet wounds all over their bodies." All three were dead at the scene, he said.

A few hours earlier, an Israeli motorist was killed and another wounded in a shooting attack, apparently by a Palestinian gunman, near the Jewish settlement of Ofra, said rescue services spokesman Yeruham Mandola.

The violence accompanied repeated Israeli incursions into Palestinian towns in the West Bank.

Late Tuesday, Israeli soldiers entered Beitunia, a suburb of the West Bank town of Ramallah, Palestinians said, and surrounded the house of a prominent Hamas leader. However, the leader, Hassan Yussuf, was not there. The Israeli military had no comment.

Israel's latest sweep in the West Bank came after a Palestinian blew himself up outside an ice cream parlor and cafe crowded with women and children in a Tel Aviv suburb Monday, killing Ruth Peled, 56, and her 18-month-old granddaughter, Sinai Kenaan.

Suicide bomber identified

The Al Aqsa Brigades, linked to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, claimed responsibility and identified the bomber as Jihad Titi, 18, a cousin of a leading Al Aqsa militant Mahmoud Titi, who was killed in an Israeli tank attack last week.

On Tuesday, troops in armored personnel carriers and jeeps drove into Jenin and a nearby refugee camp at about 3 a.m. and left by midday. They arrested eight, including the local leader of the Islamic militant group Hamas, Rami Awad.

In one incident, a 55-year-old Palestinian civilian, who had come out of his home to watch the fighting, was shot in the leg before dawn Tuesday, witnesses said. Israeli troops opened fire on an ambulance trying to retrieve the wounded man, witnesses said; the army said it was checking that report.

"We couldn't bring him to the hospital until 8 a.m. and by then he was already dead," said Ibrahim Dabaneh, director of emergency services in the city.